and there were certain extra ones. B. knew all about them from Harree and Pompom, who spent nearly all their time in the cabinot. They were rooms about nine feet square and six feet high. There was no light and no floor, and the ground (three were on the ground floor) was always wet and often a good many inches under water. The occupant on entering was searched for tobacco, deprived of his or her mattress and blanket, and invited to sleep on the ground on some planks. One didn't need to write a letter to a member of the opposite sex to get cabinot, or even to call a planton embusqué—there was a woman, a foreigner, who, instead of sending a letter to her embassy through the bureau (where all letters were read by the mail clerk to make sure that they said nothing disagreeable about the authorities or conditions of La Ferté) tried to smuggle it outside, and got twenty-eight days of cabinot. She had previously written three times, handing the letters to the Surveillant, as per regulations, and had received no reply. Fritz, who had no idea why he was arrested and was crazy to get in touch with his embassy, had likewise written several letters, taking the utmost care to state the facts only and always handing them in; but he had never received a word in return. The obvious inference was that letters from a foreigner to his embassy were duly accepted by the Surveillant (Warden), but rarely, if ever, left La Ferté.
B. and I were conversing merrily àpropos the God-sent miracle of our escape from Vingt-et-Un, when a benign-faced personage of about fifty with sparse greyish hair and a Benjamin Franklin expression appeared on the other side of the fence, from the direction of the door through which I had passed after bumping the beefy bull. "Planton" it cried heavily to the wooden-handed one, "Two men to go get water." Harree and Pompom were already at the gate with the archaic water-wagon, the former pushing from behind and the latter in the shafts. The guardian of the cour walked up and opened the gate for them, after ascertaining that another planton was waiting at the corner of the building to escort them on their mission. A little way from the cour, the stone wall (which
